Old TV shows

[Guest Mores]

19 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

You never heard of Bilko? (Or "The Phil Silvers Show" I should say.) Actually I'm not surprised - my wife is American and she never heard of it either - all though her parents remember it. It had a surge of popularity in the UK during the 80s and 90s - at a time when the Americans had forgotten it. Though oddly enough, everyone in America still remembers the other comedies from that era like The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, Beverley Hillbillies etc.

I suspect the problem may be that the Americans like to respect their military, while Master Sergeant Ernest Bilko (Phil Silvers) was about the least respectable soldier imaginable. He was lazy, dishonest and manipulative. He constantly exploited the men under him and the officers over him - especially his commanding officer Colonel North, who (though he knew full well that Bilko was a creep) never learned his lesson. He was forever flirting with North's wife, and indeed any other woman whose influence he stood to benefit from. He was everything you feel you ought to despise, and yet you couldn't help liking him for his cheery cheek.

The Young Ones was a comedy from the 1980s about four VERY disgusting young men living together in a putrid apartment, under constant threat of eviction from their landlord Mr. Brovlovsky (played by Alexei Sayle). If you think of The Monkees crossed with Family Guy you'll get the idea. The roommates called themselves "students" but you never saw them doing any studying. Neither did they appear to have jobs. They spent most of their time either engaged in ridiculous schemes (such as digging for oil in their basement), dodging the TV license inspector (by eating the TV) or else inflicting comedic violence on each other. It was quite shocking for its time.

Wait. Sgt Bilko?  There was a Steve Martin movie by that name.  Was that the same character?

[Jamie123]

Just now, Mores said:

Wait. Sgt Bilko?  There was a Steve Martin movie by that name.  Was that the same character?

Ah yes you're right! Now I think of it they did do a movie version with Steve Martin! I like Steve Martin a lot, but he couldn't play Bilko the way Phil Silvers could.

[mirkwood]

[Guest Mores]

3 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

Ah yes you're right! Now I think of it they did do a movie version with Steve Martin! I like Steve Martin a lot, but he couldn't play Bilko the way Phil Silvers could.

That's about how I felt when he did Pink Panther.  Peter Sellers was the man.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Mores

[NeuroTypical]

18 hours ago, Vort said:

I actually agree with this. One of the most overrated comedies of all time. Lasted about four times as long as the three-year Korean War. Apparently, many people found Alan Alda's snarky humor engaging right up to the end. I was much less discriminating at the time, but I thought it was getting stale. Poor Radar was getting awfully long in the tooth for the naive kid who got drafted.

Plus, Hawkeye was a huge jerk, and almost never got called on it. He was simply mean, and hid behind his surgical skills so he could bully people incessantly and pretend he was justified. After a while, I just wanted to see someone come along and invert his nose.

My father the WWII infantry sgt., absolutely loved MASH.  My earliest memories are of me bringing him a beer and listening to him laugh as he watched the show.  He was particularly fond of the nurses, and the role they played as doing what they were told, and otherwise were useful for pursuing as sex playthings.  (Apart from Hot Lips Houlihan, who he swore at whenever she was on screen.)   He was a dying breed, and his very normal pre 1980's beliefs about women seem to have mostly died out of the middle class.

Later when I went to college, I found myself in the classroom of a liberal feminist who was singing the praises of Alan Alda as a respecter of women.  I told her a few things about MASH, and she was shocked.

Edited May 21, 2019 by NeuroTypical

[Jamie123]

10 hours ago, Mores said:

That's about how I felt when he did Pink Panther.  Peter Sellers was the man.

Indeed - Peter Sellers was the greatest! Him and Spike Milligan were fantastic together in The Goon Show.

(Mustn't forget Harry Secombe too! With his chicken impersonations!) 

[Guest Scott]

On 5/20/2019 at 1:00 PM, Mores said:

What shows do you remember liking back in the day, but now you look back and think it was trash?

War of the Worlds (the series) 

Then there's kid's shows.  We didn't watch much TV as children, but I remember watching the Transformers and liking it.  I saw an episode of it a while ago and it was pretty much trash.

[Vort]

On 5/20/2019 at 12:00 PM, Mores said:

What shows do you remember liking back in the day, but now you look back and think it was trash?

Honestly, that describes almost all television, both in my childhood and today.

[mikbone]

Too many to list.  Man I can’t wait till the hereafter when St Peter tells me how many hours (years) I have spent watching TV.

One of my favorite Batman clips, which btw adequately describes many of my days.

This thread reminds me of a quote from the book Ready Player One (which was much better than the movie).  And I totally identified with the main character Wade Watts.

 

You could say I covered all the bases.
I studied Monty Python. And not just Holy Grail, either. Every single one of their films, albums, and books, and every episode of the original BBC series. (Including those two “lost” episodes they did for German television.)
I wasn’t going to cut any corners.
I wasn’t going to miss something obvious.
Somewhere along the way, I started to go overboard.
I may, in fact, have started to go a little insane.
I watched every episode of The Greatest American Hero, Airwolf, The A-Team, Knight Rider, Misfits of Science, and The Muppet Show.
What about The Simpsons, you ask?
I knew more about Springfield than I knew about my own city.
Star Trek? Oh, I did my homework. TOS, TNG, DS9. Even Voyager and Enterprise. I watched them all in chronological order. The movies, too.”

Edited May 25, 2019 by mikbone

[Guest Mores]

15 hours ago, Scott said:

War of the Worlds (the series) 

Then there's kid's shows.  We didn't watch much TV as children, but I remember watching the Transformers and liking it.  I saw an episode of it a while ago and it was pretty much trash.

Only Transformers?  I remember my younger relatives watching Go-bots.  Those are largely forgotten now.  And good riddance.  I only saw one elisode, and it was beyond iredeemable .

BTW, I sort of liked War of the World's.  But I thought it suffered from low budget.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Mores

[Guest Scott]

32 minutes ago, Mores said:

Only Transformers?  I remember my younger relatives watching Go-bots.  

 I never watched the Go-bots so can't comment.  

Quote

BTW, I sort of liked War of the World's.  But I thought it suffered from low budget.

I liked it too and recently ordered it on Amazon.  I watched it recently and it isn't as good as I remembered.  I only watched a few episodes.  I don't think I'll watch the rest if you wanted the DVDs.  Just PM me.  

[anatess2]

When I was about 14, I saw the very first episode of Remington Steele and I went googly-eyed when Pierce Brosnan kissed the girl’s hand in the intro.  Then my mom took us to spend the summer in my grandma’s house and they don’t get that channel in their rabbit ears antenna and I cried and cried and was very rude and difficult which hurt my aunt (who owned the house and the TV) because I said I hate this place.  My grandma’s brother saved my soul by taking me with him everywhere he went to occupy me and dropped wisdom everyday of the summer.

I saw Remington Steele a few years back and I couldn’t believe that show and Pierce Brosnan was so blah.  I still get haunted by memories of how rude I was because of that stupid show.

[Jamie123]

Anyone remember Kenny Everett? I thought back then (and still think now) that he could be very funny. But he really didn't have enough material. A new season would come on and you'd say "Ah yes, Kenny Everett", and watch him and laugh at all his new jokes. Next week you'd tune in again and not laugh quite so hard because it was essentially all the same jokes from the first episode recycled. The next week you'd laugh less still and by the end of the season  - much as you wanted to laugh - you couldn't. A few months later he'd be back, and you'd think "we'll give him another try" and he'd have added a couple of new gimmicks to his act - which were admittedly very funny the first time you saw them - but again he'd repeat them in the second episode ... and the third ... and eventually you'd be forced to conclude that despite his being very funny at times, the show really wasn't worth watching.

[Jamie123]

On 5/26/2019 at 5:24 AM, anatess2 said:

cried and cried and was very rude and difficult which hurt my aunt (who owned the house and the TV) because I said I hate this place.

[mnn2501]

On 5/20/2019 at 4:10 PM, mirkwood said:

M*A*S*H*

DW and I are (somewhat) binge watching the entire MASH series currently.

I also am slowly watching the Andy Griffin Show.

[Guest Mores]

I just realized that I miss The People's Court with the original Judge Wapner.  I haven't really watched the latest judge on the show.  And while I'm somewhat entertained by Judge Judy, she comes off as rude much more often than she needs to.

Highlights from Wapner:

A woman keyed the car of another woman.  His response was along the lines of:

Quote

I think she did it.  I BELIEVE she did it.  But what evidence have you got?  We can't go around convicting people on suspicion alone.  We need evidence.  So, I sympathize with you.  And I'd really like to help you.  But my hands are tied.

After he had issued a judgment, he was surprised to find that nearly the entire studio audience disagreed with a judgment he had made. So, the only time I ever saw it, he came out after the ruling do address the audience and express how disturbing he found that.  He asked them what they were thinking about.

Their assessment was that the plaintiff "was asking for it."  And if you heard the case, it was obvious that the plaintiff was a jerk and was behaving very jerk-like both during the original altercation and in court that day.  The judge responded.

Quote

I want to make one thing clear.  No one "ASKS for it."  No one WANTS to be hit or get vandalized or robbed or whatever.  He may have been a world class jerk.  But that is not illegal.  If I had the right to beat up or lock up anyone who was behaving like a jerk, I don't think we'd have many people out of jail on any given day.

[Vort]

Re: Mores' insight: I have nothing against Judge Judy. When I've seen her, she's been great. But I loved Wapner. That show was actually kind of fun to watch, in a trashy sort of way.

[anatess2]

31 minutes ago, Vort said:

Re: Mores' insight: I have nothing against Judge Judy. When I've seen her, she's been great. But I loved Wapner. That show was actually kind of fun to watch, in a trashy sort of way.

I can binge-watch Judge Judy for months.  I've never seen Wapner.  Growing up in the Philippines, shows that rely on talking a lot don't do well there because of the language barrier.  I liked Perry Mason when it started showing in the Philippines back in the 80's but they stopped showing it not too long after.

[Guest Mores]

13 hours ago, anatess2 said:

I can binge-watch Judge Judy for months.

That would explain a lot.